To Market, To Market

They were just minding their own business, feasting on their daily ration of silage when two 4-wheelers interrupted their morning repast.

After the curious creatures looked us over and we did a little "hey, hey, heying" and arm waving, the feeder calves proceeded down the lane to the corrals.

The feeder calves are now a little more than a year old. They were the babies born to our cow herd during the 2014 calving season. They spent the summer on pasture with their mamas, then we sorted off the babies last fall and weaned them. The feeder calves have been in a separate pasture, where Randy & Jake have been feeding them all winter.

On Monday, we sent them up to the corrals, where we sorted them into two groups - steers and heifers. (I never get any photos of sorting. It's not a job that needs a camera thrown into the mix.)

We planned to keep 25 heifers to breed back for our herd. So, after the initial sorting, Randy again looked through the heifers. He picked out the ones which had been treated with the bruccellosis vaccine. Then, among those, he chose the ones that he thought had the best characteristics that we want to carry on in our herd. He looked for heifers with a straight back, good muscling, a larger frame size, good feet, a smaller head and a feminine look. 

Those 25 went into a separate lot. The remaining 73 went back to the pasture until Wednesday morning. That's when the semi came to take them to the sale barn. Though we have two cattle trailers, it would take several trips to get the cattle to the sale barn, so we hire Darrel Harner Trucking to take all the cattle at once.

The cattle go single file up a loading chute and into the semi. The semi is divided into different compartments, which can hold anywhere from six head to 25 head of cattle. Darrel would tell us how many he wanted at a time, and the guys would send that many into the truck.

Then, they'd wait until it was time to send the next group on their way.

Once they were all loaded, the semi pulled out for the trip to Pratt Livestock.

Randy & I went to the sale barn in the pickup and were there when Darrel arrived with the semi.

Darrel backed the semi up to a chute.

The cattle came down a ramp and into a holding pen at the sale barn. Randy and a sale barn employee counted them as they came off the truck.

I stood on a catwalk to get a photo and couldn't help but think of the song from Peter Pan, "Me and my shadow, my shadow and me."

The sale barn workers sorted our cattle by sex and size and put them into different pens where they have water and feed until sale time. There are lots of pens throughout the sale barn facility. Each sellers' cattle are kept separate. 

Today, we'll be back at Pratt Livestock for the cattle sale. More on that later!

Right Place, Right Time: Wordless Wednesday

But beauty seen is never lost,

God's colors all are fast;

The glory of this sunset heaven

into my soul has passed.

--John Greenleaf Whittier

I just love being at the right place at the right time.

As we were coming back from Manhattan Saturday evening, the sun was setting behind the 100-year-old elevator at Rayl's Hill just west of Hutchinson.

As I predicted, my earlier Rayl's Hill story and photos would not be my last of this faithful old landmark. And that's a good thing.

Opera: A Training Ground for Life Skills

Once upon a time, I was in an opera. One husband, two kids, two granddaughters, one Central Kansas farm and 36 years later, it may seem the stuff from which fairytales are made.

During my senior year at Kansas State, I was Miss Pinkerton in Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Old Maid and the Thief." I was a home economics and mass communications major, so it was a bit unusual for me to land a role in the opera. But I did take private voice lessons and used music courses to satisfy some of my humanities requirements for my degree.

Memorabilia from my opera experiences in 1979.

I still think my opera gig and our week-long tour to Western Kansas was one reason my Food Science professor wouldn't raise my grade a few tenths of a fraction to an "A." She said she didn't think I was fully committed to my major - even though I'd spent much of the prior year as chairman of the College of Home Economics' Hospitality Day (the old terminology for open house)

Hmmm ... I wonder if I'm still bitter about that B+ and her remarks about my commitment. But, in the long run, being part of the opera and the opera tour provided more life experiences than a "A" in Food Science. And, for the record, no employer has ever asked me for my grade card (though this Type A overachiever would have been more than happy to share it).

The opera memories came rushing back over the weekend as I watched our niece, Madison, in "Hansel and Gretel." She was the Gingerbread Witch. Madi, like me, got a fun "character" role. I was a frazzled, easily agitated busybody. Madison was a manipulative, expressive witch with a "taste" for lost children. Madi, a vocal performance major, is much more talented than I ever was. And she doesn't get as nervous - or maybe she's better at hiding it than me.

Madison is on the far right. Photo found on Facebook.

I still have memorabilia from the opera, but I don't have any photos of myself as Miss Pinkerton. There wasn't a cell phone in every pocket back in 1979.

I do have my directions for applying my extensive makeup and a photo from a Collegian advertisement - just in case I'm ever in the mood to become Miss Pinkerton for the day. I wouldn't have to draw on so many wrinkles or apply so much shading these days!

The memorabilia collage I made 36 years ago still hangs in our home office, but I hadn't really looked at it for years. It's been fun to reminisce by reading the reviews and remembering the friends and fellow cast mates who sent me flowers or well wishes via the Collegian personal ads. My opera score is marked with stage directions and notes about diction and phrasing.

That B+ in Food Science pales in comparison to the opera experience. I would always have more chances to study and learn. I still do that every day.

But being in the opera was a little like learning to work in the real world outside academia. I relied on other people to show up and be engaged, and they relied on me. I learned to juggle extra practices and obligations on top of an already-crowded schedule. I learned about dealing with different personalities and egos in pressure-packed situations, including my own. I learned teamwork and working toward a common goal. I was able to use God-given gifts in a fun and productive way.

And isn't that what life should be about?

On the Other Side of the Interview

Unless I'm the one clicking the shutter button, I will do my best to wiggle my way out of any photo. You want to talk interviews? Sure, I'll gladly prepare a list of questions and then "who, what, where and why" my way down the list. I love talking to people and discovering their stories. Everyone has one, you know. But why would anyone want to interview me? I am much more articulate on paper than in person or on the phone.

Still, I did consent to being interviewed for an online magazine piece for Living the Country Life. And I lived to tell the tale, thanks to reporter Stephanie Kocer. Here's the link to the Q & A, Blogging the Country Life. Living the Country Life is produced by the Meredith Corporation in Des Moines, Iowa.

Stephanie told me that she wanted to do a story about someone who blogs about agriculture. She did a quick Google search and found me on this list, the Top 50 Farm Blogs: http://www.seametrics.com/blog/top-farm-blogs/

Here's how Seametrics described my blog:

Kim’s County Line
Sowing seeds of hope despite hard times, sprouting awareness for a new generation at Ag Day and capturing sunsets framed by a century-old grain elevator are all-in-a-day’s-work for the Kansas farm wife and freelance radio reporter behind “Kim’s County Line”, where readers can discover why dusting is a dirty word to farmers and housewives, why planting wheat is like waiting to give birth and why feed store mousers are as important as any CEO 

"I thought your blog focus fit our audience well," Stephanie told me.

I have had the Top 50 Farm Blog badge on my blog for awhile now, but Stephanie's answer prompted me to look at the link again. Check it out and explore some of the other bloggers who are telling the story of the modern American farm during March, which brings us Kansas Agriculture Month and Kansas and National Ag Day on March 18.

 

It's a Small, Small World

Photo by Leowang1995, posted in Wikipedia

When I was in fifth grade, my family went to Disneyland during Christmas break. I distinctly remember riding the boats in the "It's A Small World" attraction. The characters from around the world twirled and sang one of those songs that just gets stuck in your head:

 It's a world of laughter, a world of tears

It's a world of hopes and a world of fears
There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all ...

 I've been having the same feeling lately as random emails have arrived in my in-box. Here's one:

Hello! I saw the photo of the girl on a fence, overlooking a paddock. She wears pink, shiny, fringed chaps. My 4-year old granddaughter Charlotte is more horse-crazy than I was at that age.

I absolutely need to get a pair of those chaps for her. I've surfed thru so many sites and can't find them. Do you know from where those chaps can be purchased?

Any info you can give me will be greatly appreciated!!!

Thank you!

I thought I recognized the little girl, but the blog post about the Stafford Rodeo was from July 2010. So I did a little detective work, and yes, I had the right Stafford family. I used Facebook to message our cowgirl's mama, who just happened to still have the chaps. Long story short (or at least shorter than the 11 emails it took), the mom sold the chaps to the grandma and they were soon on their way to Duluth, Minnesota, to make another little cowgirl happy. Don't you love happy endings? I do!

CJ, the chap purchaser, lives just six blocks from Lake Superior and has four grown children, eight grandchildren and one great grandson. I'm now her Facebook friend, too.

My next out-of-the-ordinary blog reader was half a world away - Nitin, a farmer in India. He wrote:

Hi

I think your blog is awesome

I am sending some pics of my farm land with wheat and vegetable crop.

I am looking forward for association and opportunities of farming in USA and India.

Happy Farming

He sent this photo of his wheat field in India.

Also through the blog, I got an email from a University of Nebraska student, asking for help in finding people for a heat management survey in tractors and combines. I shared the survey with a Farmer's Wife group on Facebook. I hope it helped her out.

These were more unusual emails. But, through blogging, I've developed friendships with bloggers from all over the U.S. and the world, including Lynda, the Country Mum who posts a photo from their Australian farm each day at Farm-ily. There's Buttons at Buttons Thoughts from Canada and Robyn from The Ranch Wife Chronicles in South Dakota and Cheri from the scablands of Washington at My Ranch Life. Those just scratch the surface of the people who have become friends across the miles by commenting on each other's blog posts.

As I wrote last year, my photography has shown up on Facebook and sprinkled through the internet, including this May Day basket. Jill's family ended up on a K-State promotion for the Vanier Football complex.

But there can be a dark side to it, too. Besides the greetings from Minnesota and India the past month, I had an email from someone who thought one of my photos was being used by a person for nefarious purposes:

My name is Sue, and I found your blog in a very unusual way - a Google reverse image search.

Long story short - I have an acquaintance who I believe is being catphished by someone online. (Catphishing is when a person makes up an online persona with fake pictures and details in order to lure others into relationships with them.)  Because I believe this to be true, I used some of the images that the person posted as their own online and reverse image searched them on Google.

I am not saying you did anything!! I think someone found your image and used it as their own in order to keep up the ruse of their online persona - and if you could just give me some info on that photo - like if you took it yourself and when, that would help me prove to this acquaintance that somebody is using other people's stuff to trick him.

I'd like to reiterate that I don't think you are doing anything weird - I think someone used your photos, and just wanted to have some proof for my friend to help him see what's happening.

I wrote her back, telling her when and where I took the photo. I hope it helped her friend.

The internet is an amazing place. It can be used to build friendships and connections. But it can also be used in less reputable ways. I suppose that's true of life in general. It just is magnified by social media.

Heartbreak and Hallelujahs

Sometimes, farming breaks your heart. This mama cow lost her calf to cold temperatures over the weekend. Despite Randy checking the pastures frequently because of the snow and cold, her baby didn't survive the frigid wind chills overnight.

Randy put the calf into the back of the pickup to take it away. Now, every time we come into the pasture, she follows the pickup around. We can hear her bawling from the house. It just doesn't seem fair that such a good mama lost her baby. But that is life - and death - on a farm.

We didn't get the 6 inches of snow that some meteorologists were forecasting. The snow we did get was fairly dry, so it likely won't help the wheat crop too much. We were glad to miss the sleet that had been forecast for Sunday.

The snow did make for chilly rounds during the Saturday checks of the heifers and the cows. Besides the death in the pasture south of the house, we had another heifer calve and two other live births from cows.

Several of the calves huddled down in the hay to get warm.

Others got out of the wind in the dried prairie grasses.

Still others stayed closed to their mamas.

 

Nothing like warm milk on a chilly day, right?

By Sunday evening, most of the snow had melted. That was OK with us. I'm guessing it was OK with the cattle, too.

Snowflakes & Seasons

Taken Saturday afternoon

A Time to Think

The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs
 the wisdom of a million meteorologists.
–Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher

When I say "the four seasons," some may think of a singing group and others about a famous hotel. But I think about Kansas. The weekend's snow gave me a chance to capture the beauty of the winter season at Peace Creek.

The snow provided some Andrew Wyeth-painting-worthy scenes as we went to check cattle Saturday after lunch. Even though we didn't get the deluge of snow that the meteorologists were predicting, it gave me the chance to add to my four seasons photo portfolios.

As I posted last month, I added a snow scene to one of my favorite Manhattan locations. But, upon reflection, I realized I probably had more local four seasons shots in the literally thousands of photos I have on the computer.

In this Peace Creek montage, I am again one season short of the "full house" or, in this case, a full "creek." (For locals, this is the view from the bridge at 4th Street Road,  just east of the county line.)

To my winter scenes from the weekend ...

These two were taken late afternoon on Sunday.

 I can add the goldenrod-framed shot from the fall ...

... and a pastoral scene from August for my summer scene.

Spring is coming, even though it doesn't seem much like it after this weekend of snow and cold. And I'll be ready - in more ways than one!